The Beak of the Finch

by

Jonathan Weiner

Dolph Schluter Character Analysis

Dolph Schluter is Peter and Rosemary Grant’s former mentee and one of the foremost researchers on Darwinian divergence in the modern era. While working with the Grants, Schluter studied the beaks of the finches on the Galápagos island of Pinta. His research helped him develop a model that explained the adaptive “peaks” and “valleys” that species cycle through as natural selection pressures them to evolve. Schluter went onto an independent study of stickleback fishes in British Columbia, pioneering new research on the process of adaptive radiation.

Dolph Schluter Quotes in The Beak of the Finch

The The Beak of the Finch quotes below are all either spoken by Dolph Schluter or refer to Dolph Schluter. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Natural Selection and Evolution as Ongoing Processes  Theme Icon
).
Chapter 12 Quotes

So there is a simple trade-off here for a stickleback. If the fish specializes in the muck, it cannot compete in the open water; if it specializes in the open water, it is outclassed down in the muck. The fish is in much the same position as a finch in the Galápagos, where specializing in big seeds unfits you for the small ones, and specializing in the small seeds unfits you for the big ones.

To Dolph all this evidence powerfully suggests that the colonists in these lakes have altered the course of each other's evolution, just as the finches have altered each other's courses in the Galápagos.

Related Characters: Jonathan Weiner (speaker), Dolph Schluter
Page Number: 187
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Beak of the Finch LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Beak of the Finch PDF

Dolph Schluter Quotes in The Beak of the Finch

The The Beak of the Finch quotes below are all either spoken by Dolph Schluter or refer to Dolph Schluter. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Natural Selection and Evolution as Ongoing Processes  Theme Icon
).
Chapter 12 Quotes

So there is a simple trade-off here for a stickleback. If the fish specializes in the muck, it cannot compete in the open water; if it specializes in the open water, it is outclassed down in the muck. The fish is in much the same position as a finch in the Galápagos, where specializing in big seeds unfits you for the small ones, and specializing in the small seeds unfits you for the big ones.

To Dolph all this evidence powerfully suggests that the colonists in these lakes have altered the course of each other's evolution, just as the finches have altered each other's courses in the Galápagos.

Related Characters: Jonathan Weiner (speaker), Dolph Schluter
Page Number: 187
Explanation and Analysis: